Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, was among the pioneers of American's space program - although he had to wait 16 years for his chance.
"It's worth waiting 16 years for," Slayton once said of the historic U.S.-Soviet mission in 1975, when he served as pilot of the Apollo docking module. He died Sunday of brain cancer at age 69."We're all shook up about it," fellow Mercury Seven astronaut Scott Carpenter of Vail, Colo., said
of Slayton's death. "There's not much else to say except to mourn the passing of a dear, dear comrade."
Slayton, a World War II combat pilot, was selected by NASA in 1959 and years later became a subject in Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff."
He was assigned to the second Project Mercury orbital mission in 1962 - the first went to John Glenn - but was grounded by an irregular heartbeat.
Slayton eventually overcame his heart problem and made his first and only space flight at age 51 with two other Americans during the Apollo-Soyuz mission.